Memory in Architecture

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(1)Memory in Architecture: Contemporary memorial projects and their predecessors Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben; voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 20 november 2015 om 12:30 uur door Sabina TANOVIĆ Master of Science architecture, Technische Universiteit Delft Engineer of architecture, University of Sarajevo   geboren te Sarajevo, Bosnië en Herzegovina . .

(2) This dissertation has been approved by the promotor:   Prof.dr. F. Bollerey   Composition of the doctoral committee: Rector Magnificus . . chairman . Prof.dr. F. Bollerey . . promotor . . Independent members: Prof.dr. C. Hein . . Delft University of Technology . Prof.dr. O. Selvafolta . . Politecnico di Milano . Prof.dr. R. van der Laarse . University of Amsterdam . Prof.dr. A. Pašić . . University of Sarajevo . Prof.dr. J. Winter  . . Yale University . Prof.dr. J. E. Young . . University of Massachusetts Amherst . Prof.dr. T. Avermaete . . Delft University of Technology, reserve member . .

(3) Table of contents:   1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Introduction   1.1 Interest 1.2 Significant studies 1.3 Scope and boundaries 1.4 Research outline Architecture and the memory of violence 2.1 The notion of memory 2.2 Constructing traumatic memory 2.3 Making a distinction between ‘monument’ and ‘memorial’ Making loss tangible: the psychology of architecture for death 3.1 The process of mourning 3.2 Death and architecture 3.3 Cemeteries – memory landscapes 3.3.1 Spaces of transition 3.3.1.1 Entrance 3.3.1.2 Path 3.3.1.3 Room . 39 50 62 75 79 81 86 . Building memory now 4.1 In a globalizing world   4.2 Sense of place and time 4.3 Architectural representation and its limits 4.3.1 Deductive tools . 90   99 110 119 . . A brief history of memorial architecture from the 19th century onwards 5.1 Before the First World War 5.2 Inter‐bellum period 5.3 After the Second World War 5.4 After 1980: filling and creating voids Five contemporary memorials as case studies 6.1 Materializing trauma: 11M memorial in Madrid 6.1.1 Context 6.1.2 Architecture   6.1.3 Effect 6.2 Against banalization: Steilneset Memorial in Vardø 6.2.1 Context 6.2.2 Architecture   6.2.3 Effect 6.3 Continuing the work of memorialization: Holocaust memorial museums in Drancy and Mechelen 6.3.1 Context 6.3.2 Architecture   6.3.3 Effect . 1 4 9 11 . 13 22 31 . 126 147 167 195 . 220 224 228 233 236 245 . 251 262 270 . i . .

(4) 7. 6.4 Breaking the silence: Memorial to the abolition of slavery in Nantes 6.4.1 Context 276 6.4.2 Architecture 282 6.4.3 Effect 288 6.5 Toward comprehensive memorialization: International Memorial ‘The Ring of Memory’ at Notre‐Dame de Lorette 6.5.1 Context 292 6.5.2 Architecture 295 6.5.3 Effect 300 Conclusion 305 . Bibliography List of figures Nederlandse Samenvatting Acknowledgments Curriculum Vitae . . . . . . 313 344 359 363 365 . . ii . .

(5) 1. Introduction . . 1.1 Interest ‘The ruins left of our city still protected us from the cold and the burning sun. They protected us just enough to let us endure this somehow, I smugly thought.’ Dževad Karahasan1 . This research began with a very personal quest to design a memorial that would commemorate both my private and the collective experience of the Siege of Sarajevo (1992–96).2 In 1992, when Lebbeus Woods3 was working on his book War and Architecture,4 the destruction of Sarajevo by heavy artillery fire was in full swing. While one of the many targets was being destroyed – the city’s twin towers, ‘Momo & Uzeir’ – Woods made the pessimistic statement that the burning towers of Sarajevo were ‘markers of the end of an age of reason, if not reason itself, beyond which lies a domain of almost incomprehensible darkness’.5   In the same year, images of Sarajevo’s children depicted as angels appeared on streets and ruins, as part of an art project entitled ‘Angels on the Walls’6 (Fig. 1.1). These life‐sized collages became part of the city’s architecture as a silent witnesses to the atrocity, slowly disappearing together with the walls bearing them. After continuously having been exposed to severe urbicide for almost four years, the city and its citizens faced peace from a place defined by overwhelming architectural and psychological debris, which now had to be confronted in its real scale and meaning.   Woods, a compassionate observer, preoccupied himself with the issue of memorializing Sarajevo’s architectural wounds, even though he claimed that the architecture he proposed does not commemorate anything, but instead accepts losses but also gains inflicted by war.7 The architect intuitively recognized a need for order that was lingering among citizens and he believed that architecture could provide it. Determined to create possibilities for re‐ establishing a sense of control and order in Sarajevo, the architect focused on .                                                              1. Dževad Karahasan, Sarajevo: Exodus of a City, trans. Slobodan Drakulić, Connectum: Sarajevo, 2010, p. 67 2 The Siege of Sarajevo by the combined forces of the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Army of Republika Srpska, which started on 5 April 1992 and lasted until 29 February 1996, is often referred to as the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.   3 Lebbeus Woods (1940–2012) was an American, New York‐based architect and artist, widely regarded as a creator of visionary architecture, who devoted much of his work to exploring the role of design in situations of crisis such as design concepts for Sarajevo, Havana and San Francisco. Woods is the author of several books including The Storm and the Fall, Radical Reconstruction and OneFiveFour.   4 Lebbeus Woods, War and Architecture, Pamphlet Architecture, Number 15, Princeton Architectural Press, 1993. 5 Op. cit., p. 3. 6 ‘Angels of Sarajevo’ (1993) was a project by French photographer Louis Jammes.   7 Woods, op. cit., p. 14. .

(6) Introduction . the city’s wounded tissue including even the smallest details, for example a damaged window (Fig. 1.2). . Figure 1.1 . Figure 1.2 . In this way Woods aimed to make a distinction between architecture as a weapon of destruction, or part of the problem in war, and architecture as a system of protection. Along this Janus‐faced characterization of architecture, he proposed architectural forms for establishing the order needed for continuation of life in peace. He termed them as ‘the scab’ and ‘the scar’, arguing that ‘the natural stages of healing might not be pretty, judged by conventional aesthetic standards, but they are beautiful in the existential sense.’8 (Fig. 1.3) In this view, architecture can act as a symbol of the resilience of the human spirit and the will to live of those targeted for destruction.   My interest in the role of architects as creators of order in devastated environments started in the post‐war atmosphere in Sarajevo when making sense of things was a priority. An eagerness to tell the story of the survival was widely present among the citizens, and it seemed to be getting stronger as life continued to be normalized and the eternal fire of the Second World War memorial (WWII) in the centre of the city was lit again. At the same time, the ‘other’ side – the participants in the war who, actively or inactively, supported the destruction of the city – had and still have a different memory of the events. As the issues surrounding possible ways of memorializing the war started to become more prominent, the complexities of the memorializing process began to unfold, demonstrating the contemporaneity of memory and the looming presence of counter‐memory.  .                                                              8. Op. cit., p. 24. 2 . .

(7) Introduction . For various reasons, it was too early to talk about an official commemoration. Instead, many small and spontaneous commemorations took place. It was not until a decade later that more structured ideas about commemorating the siege started to emerge, perhaps best exemplified by the ‘Tunnel’, a remnant of a life‐saving underground structure that was dug under the city’s airport during the siege. In 2006, while I was working on a graduate project for a memorial to Sarajevo’s experience of terror, similar issues were raised in a difficult discussion about how to commemorate the events of 9/11 in New York City. What was instantly clear, in the midst of arguments between those who fought for reconstruction and those who pleaded to leave the newly‐created void as a signifier, is that the memorialization had to be experiential and informative. The survivors wanted their loss to be recognized and memorialized.  . Figure 1.4 In 2011, the art exhibition ‘September 11’ was held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the attacks.9 This was a difficult task since, unlike architects, few artists had reacted to the tragedy. Of the many works chosen on the basis of their possible indirect reference to 9/11 (all of which were created before 2001), Ellsworth Kelly’s 2003 proposal to memorialize the site with a green patch of land, inspired by Indian burial mounds, was the only work to directly address the issue of memorialization (Fig. 1.4). Kelly’s collage drew attention to the much needed space for the psychological process of mourning that seemed to be neglected in the rush to reconstruct and rebuild, a strategy supported by many of the architects who delivered numerous design proposals for the memorialization of 9/11. As though foreseen by Woods’s thought on the burning towers of Sarajevo, the issue of architecture as associate to both destruction and the healing of the human spirit was the locus of interest after the attacks on New York City on 11 September 2001. Judging by the on‐going conflicts but also of forced displacements of people all over the world, the issue is not likely to become less prominent.10 Since the beginning of the millennium, numerous memorial projects have been dedicated worldwide, particularly in Europe and the United States.   Figure 1.3 .                                                              9. MoMA PS1, ‘September 11’ exhibition, 11 September 2011–9 January 2012 (http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/338, Accessed 28.01.15). 10 See: Armed Conflicts Database; Monitoring Conflicts Worldwide (IISS), (https://acd.iiss.org/, accessed 21.05.2015) 3 . .

(8) Introduction . The rapid development of this specific form of architecture poses several questions: Why is memorial architecture relevant to the survivors today, particularly in cases of collective traumatic experiences? What is the role of architects and the architectural space of memorial architecture in the memorialization of tragic events and difficult histories? How did the architectural form of memorial architecture develop in the 20th century and the first two decades of this century, and what were the tipping points in its development? This dissertation tries to give answers to these questions. 1.2 Significant studies The discipline of memory studies is considered to be, broadly speaking, an interdisciplinary nascent field that addresses issues of memory and the convergence of past and present in a given sociocultural context. For example, the journal Memory Studies sets out to provide a ‘critical forum for dialogue and debate on the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues central to a collaborative understanding of memory today’11 and therefore ‘examines the social, cultural, cognitive, political and technological shifts affecting how, what and why individuals, groups and societies remember, and forget.’12 Since the 1980, in Europe and the United States there has been a noticeable interest in issues of memory, and in particular war memory, including the field of architectural history. As the starting point of this upsurge in interest, two significant publications are usually underlined: British geographer and historian David Lowenthal’s The Past is a Foreign Country and French historian Pierre Nora’s Lieux de Mémoire.13 These works, particularly Nora’s elaboration on ‘lieux’ and ‘milieux’ of memory,14 forge the connection between memory and place. Concerning publications that deal with war memory, an accent has been placed on dichotomies and polarizations in the approach as some scholars tend to analyze from a strictly ‘political’ emphasis15 whereas others .                                                              11 Andrew Hoskins (Ed.), Memory Studies, University of Glasgow, UK in cooperation with Wulf Kansteiner, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA; Catherine Stevens University of Western Sydney, Australia and John Sutton, Macquarie University, Australia (http://mss.sagepub.com/, accessed 28.01.2015) 12 Ibid   13 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, 1985 and Pierre Nora (Ed.), Les Lieux de Mémoire, Gallimard Paris, 4 Volumes, 1984‐1992, translated as: Rethinking France, Volume 1: The State (1999); Volume 2: Space (2006); Volume 3: Legacies (2009); Volume 4: Histories and Memories (2010), University of Chicago Press.   14 Nora argued that ‘milieu de mémoire’ or ‘environment of memory’ was characteristic of European societies before 19th century when monument building was an effort assigned to the aristocracy, the church and the state. As the process of industrialization introduced profound societal changes, these environments of memory were gradually replaced by ‘lieux de mémoire’ or ‘sites of memory’, for example archives and monuments. In Nora’s view these sites constitute outward signs of memory that are no longer present as a strong inward experience. See: Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,’ in: Representations 26, Spring 1989, pp. 7‐24. 15 See for example: Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge Press, 1983 . 4 . .

(9) Introduction . conceive their argument from humanistic perspective in which the bereaved and their psychological loss holds prominent position.16 Similarly to the journal Memory Studies, authors that criticize established approaches try to create a more nuanced and mediated model that takes into account different agents that influence representations of war memory, including forms of commemoration and mourning, and individual psychic responses.17    In the field of architectural history that considers physical manifestations of memory, several architectural journals have dedicated their issues to the role monuments and memorials have played in politics and culture in previous and current times, for example Harvard Design Magazine.18 More recent publications dedicated to architectural memorials are C3 Magazine19 and the Journal of the department of Interior Design at Rhode Island School of Design20 which explored the topic further, focusing also on ruins and historical monuments. Unlike other disciplines that are dealing with issues of remembrance and commemoration, there are few authors who devoted attention to commemorative monuments and memorials, and even fewer who analyzed the designing process of memorials, and the exerting influence memorials have once they are built. Among these is the well‐known scholar of Holocaust memorials, James E. Young, who in his book The Texture of Memory21 provided an overview of several memorial sites dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust in Europe, America and Israel. In some cases Young explored the designing process, as in his discussion of the agonizing dilemma about a figurative or non‐figurative approach illustrated in a decision Nathan Rapoport22 (1911‐1987) had to take when creating the Warsaw Ghetto Monument (1948).23 The Texture of Memory is a valuable source of showcasing a variety of forms employed in the memorialization of the Holocaust, and offers an elaborate overview of how these differ based on their cultural context and national agenda. Emphasis is given to the emergence of so called ‘countermonuments’ in Germany, for which Young further plead in .                                                              16. Such approach is exemplified in: Jay Winter, Sites of memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge University Press, 1995 17 T.G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson and Michael Roper, ‘The Politics of war memory and commemoration. Contexts, structures and dynamics’, in: T.G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson and Michael Roper (Eds.), The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, Routledge Studies in Memory & Narative, Routledge: London and New York, 2000, pp. 3‐85, pp. 15/16 18 Harvard Design Magazine: Constructions of Memory: On Monuments Old and New, No. 9, Fall, 1999. 19 Magazine C3, No. 281, January, 2008; C3, No. 323, 2010 and C3: Death and Architecture, No. 345, 2013. 20   IntAR, Difficult Memories: Reconciling Meaning, Rhode Island School of Design, Vol. 04, April 2013. 21 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, Yale University Press, 1993 22 Nathan Rapoport was a Polish sculptor who in 1950 immigrated to the United States where he lived until his death. Rapoport’s work includes several sculptures in public spaces, such as Liberation memorial (1985) in New Jersey, portraying an American soldier carrying the body of a Holocaust survivor.   23 See: Young, 1993, pp. 163‐184 5 . .

(10) Introduction . his later work At Memory’s Edge: After Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture.24   Another influential work is Sergiusz Michalski’s Public Monuments: Art in a Political Bondage 1870‐199725 that focused on public monuments from the end of the 19th century ‘statuomania’ in Paris, via the Bismarck cult and Nationaldenkmäler in Germany up to the Holocaust monuments and memorials upsurge in the nineteen‐nineties. Michalski demonstrated how public monuments were used for various political purposes, but also how the aesthetic form followed political climate changes. By analyzing the most influential monuments, Michalski underlined several key turning points in aesthetic representation, for instance the period when a traditional Beaux‐Arts monument descended from its tall pedestal in order to approach the viewer. Michalski elaborated on the, then perceived as novel, new impulses of the ‘countermemory’ generation as well, although in a rather concise way. In his chapter ‘Invisibility and Inversion’, Michalski recognizes a number of key features employed in public monuments: invisibility, as demonstrated in the works of German artists Horst Hoheisel, Jochen Gerz and Micha Ullman; ‘black forms’ as an evocation of the ‘non‐representational nature of darkness and annihilation’;26 and finally the use of ‘mirror‐like reflections’ in public monuments and memorials that aim for the involvement of the visitor.   These aspects are at length inspected by Young in the already mentioned At Memory’s Edge, in which the author offered an insightful discussion on works of the above mentioned artists, alongside Art Spiegelman’s Maus, David Levinthal’s Mein Kampf (1993‐94), Rachel Whiteread’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna (2000), Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock’s Memorial to the Deported Jewish Citizens of the Bayerisches Viertel (1993), Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin (2001). Young concludes with the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (MMJE) in Berlin (2005), where he participated as a member of the jury. The monograph demonstrates how art can be utilized as a tool for initiating change. In the two Berlin’s architectural examples, however, the analysis does not go beyond a discussion of the design concept and theory, omitting the issue of the effect and influence these memorials have on both the city and the memory they are supposed to embody. Young examines the social effects of public memorial spaces elsewhere,27 by employing what he terms the approach of ‘functional analysis of art’.28 In this .                                                              24 James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge: After Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture, Yale University: New Haven and London, 2000 25 Sergiusz Michalski, Public Monuments: Art in political Bondage 1870‐1997, Reaction Books Ltd: London, 1998 26 Michalski, op. cit., p. 186 27 James E. Young, ‘Holocaust Museums in Germany, Poland, Israel and the United States’ in: Konrad Kwiet and Jürgen Matthäus (Eds.), Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust, Praeger Publishers: London, 2004, pp. 249‐274 28 Young argued that the art of public memory, next to aesthetic and historical relevance, encompasses also ‘the activity that brought them into being, the constant give and take between memorials and viewers, and, finally, the responses of viewers to their own light of a memorialized past.’ Op. cit., pp. 251/252 . 6 . .

(11) Introduction . approach, instead of the memorial space alone, it is the viewer who is charged with the extraordinary obligation to ‘complete’ the work of memory, as the author explained: ‘because the murdered Jews can respond to this gesture (Germany’s will to remember expressed in creating the memorial) only with a massive silence, the burden of response now falls on living Germans who in their memorial visits will be asked to recall the mass murder of a people once perpetrated in their name, the absolute void this destruction has left behind, and their own responsibility for memory itself.’29   Focusing more on the architectural performance of memorials and art works dealing with commemoration, is a book by Mark Godfrey ‐ Abstraction and the Holocaust.30 Here, the author explored the designing process and the actual use of the MMJE after it has been built. Godfrey further focused on several visual artists who engaged with the representation of the Shoah through abstract language demonstrated in the works by Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Frank Stella and others. Among these, one chapter is dedicated to the analysis of Louis Kahn’s (1901‐1974) design concept for a Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs (1966‐72), planned to be installed in New York. Godfrey also provides an account of art pieces commissioned for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (1993), in which he offers an insightful elaboration on how art fulfils the task of the building, whether by augmenting its architecture or by working against it.   The Jewish Museum and the MMJE in Berlin are also given prominent space in Shelly Hornstein’s book Losing Site: Architecture, Memory and Place.31 The author placed the two memorials in the wider context of the city, examining how they relate to their surroundings. Informed by, among others, Edward Casey’s book The Fate of Place,32 it is dedicated to the relationship between architecture, memory and place. Next to a broad range of case studies, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Louvre in Paris, Hornstein gives a brief account on Dani Karavan’s (born 1930) memorial to Walter Benjamin in Portbou, Passages (1994), arguing that experiencing the memorial ‘in situ’ is a prerequisite to understanding its space and its relationship to the place. Hornstein’s work is a valuable insightful and wide‐ ranging contribution that connects several disciplines in an attempt to create a wider framework for analyzing architecture. At the same time, Hornstein’s perception on the memorials discussed in the book is derived from a personal perspective and therefore its objectivity can be questioned at times.   Probably the largest overview of contemporary ways of remembering in the context of the United States is given in Erika Doss’ Memorial Mania: Public .                                                              29. Young, 2000, op. cit., p. 223 Mark Godfrey, Abstraction and the Holocaust, Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2007 31 Shelley Hornstein, Losing Site: Architecture, Memory and Place, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011 32 Edward Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History, University of California Press, 1997 30. 7 . .

(12) Introduction . Feeling in America.33 Wondering why so many memorials are being built in America today, Doss charts an incredible variety of themes, modes and forms of representation, including temporary memorials. Stating that memorials embody public feelings, Doss distinguishes five main categories of these feelings into which the observed memorials fall: ‘grief’ is assigned to contemporary modes of mourning such as temporary memorials, ‘fear’ is related to terrorism memorials, ‘gratitude’ is connected to the memorialization of WWII, ‘shame’ relates to memorials dealing with issues of national morality such as Duluth’s Lynching Memorial (2003) in Minnesota, and finally ‘anger’ deals with contested memories and historical revisionism. The book is widely acknowledged since it provides an abundant source of information and gives a detailed image of tendencies in commemorative practices in America. However, the aesthetic qualities of the assembled memorials and their design processes are only briefly explained at times where they support the author’s main argument about the contemporary obsession with memory building. A first work that critically assesses many recently established memorial museums is Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities34 by Paul Williams. Selecting case studies across nations and contexts, Memorial Museums engages with the goals and strategies of these institutions while trying to assess their public significance. Williams acknowledges the diversity of the field of memorialization and points out the lack of an over‐arching theoretical framework to structure the analysis of the actual commemoration. At the same time he raises many questions about the future of memorial museums. In chapter four, attention is given to location and spatiality in memorial museums by attending to issues of architectural space, authenticity and the aesthetic implications for a museum’s use and function. In this respect, Memorial Museums as a comparative study offers a credible starting point for future research.   Other significant sources on the topic of designing contemporary memorial spaces can be found in forms of essays in transnational comparative studies, for example Places of Commemoration: Search for Identity and Landscape Design edited by Joachim Wolschke‐Bulmahn.35 Furthermore, several publications are dedicated to particular memorial sites.36 For this dissertation a research by Patrick Amsellem, which goes in depth in investigating a process of creating the Deportation Memorial in Paris (1962), offered a detailed .                                                              33. Erika Doss, Memorial Mania, The University of Chicago Press, 2010 Paul Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, Berg‐Oxford New York, 2007 35 Joachim Wolschke‐Bulmahn (Ed.), Places of Commemoration: Search for Identity and Landscape Design, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection: Washington D.C., 2001.    36 For example see: Massimo Mucci, La Risiera di San Sabba. Un’architettura per la memoria, Libreria Editirice Goriziana, Sesta edizione, 2012; Bernhard Schneider, Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum Berlin: Between the Lines, Prestel Verlag, 1999; Yad Vashem, Moshe Safdie – the Architecture of Memory, Lars Muller Publishers, 2006; Lawrence Halprin, The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Chronicle books: San Francisco, 1997.   34. 8 . .

(13) Introduction . analytical view on this particular period that made profound impact on later developments in the field of memorial architecture.37   In this brief overview of relevant literature, dealing with the issue of designing and building memorials and monuments, my intention was to point to the lack of scholarly work focused on how the process of designing and construction of a memorial in a particular context influenced the final outcome and its reception. By analyzing these aspects in different contexts and topics, this dissertation proposes to create a broader view within the existing body of knowledge and add guidelines that could be consulted in architectural practice.     1.3 Scope and boundaries Technically, this dissertation is focused on architecture as a space for remembering and is therefore concerned with the following key issues: how architecture supports memory work, what the role of the designer is, and what is the impact of his design once the memorial is installed in the real time and space. Before addressing these questions, I seek to situate memorialization in a wider context to be able to observe it more critically, and attend to several points which are relevant to the process of creating a memorial. This methodology includes an approach that consults different disciplines (namely psychology, anthropology and sociology) in order to establish a relevant framework for contemporary projects. Main questions that I ask are concerned with a purpose for creating the memorial on a given location, its translation into an architectural concept, its materialization, and finally the influence of the memorial space on the visitors.38 These aspects form a framework for the analysis of the five case studies discussed in this dissertation. By focusing on contemporary memorial architecture, I seek to answer how the process of designing a memorial today translates memories of human losses into an architectural space. The criteria for choosing case studies was mainly based on two aspects: variety of commemorative themes and their popularity in the media and architectural publications. Therefore, five case studies are commemorating different events that caused violent deaths ‐ terroristic attacks, wars and the consequences of the European colonial past, but also victims of 16th century superstitious beliefs.   The process of creating a memorial brings with it a wide range of issues and are, like any architectural project, closely confined with the financial .                                                              37. Patrick Amsellem, Remembering the Past, Constructing the Future. The Memorial to the Deportation in Paris and Experimental Commemoration after the Second World War, Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 2007 38 I address the spatial influence on the visitor based on several points: my own experience as a visitor (I purposefully conducted visits before pursuing any in‐depth exploration, in that way trying to assimilate with a common visitor); information from existing reviews written down by visitors; information gained from interviews with the employees about the most utilized routes and reactions of the visitors. Any more comprehensive and data‐based observations would require a research on its own.    9 . .

(14) Introduction . grounding. However, building a memorial is further complicated by the involvement of additional tasks such as preservation, representation or evocation of memory and are therefore (almost always) directly facing strong emotions and sentiments. It is often the case that all these aspects are subjects of multilayered views on a particular memory and also deeply embedded in the political and social context. Next to these defining tasks, a memorial is normally a focal architectural edifice of its built context and therefore acts as representation of that particular context, often becoming a frequented touristic attraction. If we understand representation of memory, both individual and collective as ‘the function by which symbols, or simulacra, or surrogates, come to stand for some absent referent’, 39 it is inviting to comprehend how this manifests and what does it mean for memorial architecture in particular. What are the symbols, simulacra or surrogates used in many contemporary memorial projects?   In order to address these questions, I considered both the theoretical approach and the field work. Accordingly, my thesis is divided into two parts. The first, and the largest, part of this thesis is dedicated to addressing several issues such as the notion of memory and the process of mourning, funeral architecture, limits of architectural representation and a historical overview of significant architectural developments from the 18th century until the current times. In an interdisciplinary approach that takes cues from psychology, philosophy, and anthropology, political and social history together with art and architectural history, the purpose of this part is to establish a framework in which the contemporary examples can be analyzed. The second part is focused on detailed analysis of five contemporary memorial projects including their design, construction and performance.   The methodology of the working process included visiting most of the monuments, memorials and museums discussed in the dissertation, as well as (where possible) conducting interviews with designers, employees and members of memorial committees involved. In this way, the discussion aims to involve less theoretical and formal descriptions but instead to tackle the issues that occur in practice. Hence, architecture’s operating time and space as media of communication with visitors is the main focus of the analysis of case studies. The architectural examples were selected based on the following questions: Who is the commissioner and what is the context? What were the demands and expectations? What was the design solution to a particular task and how did the design process develop? How does the realized building operate in practice and how does it affect the visitor? I aim to understand a process of constructing a memorial by focusing on the information available in journals, newspaper articles, pamphlets and books, but also the data acquired from conducted interviews and inquiries. I scrutinize the build environment in order to provide an overview of questions that are faced in practice.    .                                                              39. Richard Terdiman, Present Past: Modernity and memory Crisis, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1933, p. 8 10 . .

(15) Introduction . The case studies, all of them contemporary architectural projects, were selected to complement each other and to give a diverse range of commemorative topics. The case studies are 11M Memorial (2007) in Madrid’s Atocha station, commemorating victims of a terroristic attack; the Steilneset memorial in Vardø (2011), dedicated to the victims of witch‐hunting; a comparative analysis of two memorial museums in Drancy (2012) and Mechelen (2012) both memorializing the Holocaust; the Memorial to the abolition of slavery in Nantes (2012) and finally the International memorial ‘Ring of Memory’ dedicated to soldiers of WWI in Notre‐Dame‐de‐Lorette (2014).   The wide scope of this investigation does not suggest that the aim of the research is to be a summary of memorial architecture nor to develop a singular strategy to the understanding of contemporary memorials. Instead, the aim of my dissertation is to distinguish a set of issues, demonstrated by means of case studies, which are commonly addressed by commissioners and designers of contemporary memorials and in that way provide a framework for future projects. I argue that this way of approaching the topic can contribute to a better understanding of the design process and can therefore be applied in practice. 1.4 Research outline The dissertation is structured in seven chapters, including the introduction and the conclusion. The second chapter ‘Architecture and the memory of violence’ is an overview of relevant positions with regard to understanding memory, remembrance and its counter side, oblivion, as socio‐cultural processes. The chapter studies the contested position of architecture as a sign of collective identity which is also the reason for particular buildings to become an immediate target for destruction in times of conflict. Addressing some difficult aspects of memorialization, the chapter discusses architectural notions of monument and memorial as similar but different forms, making a clear distinction between the two as a condition for the choice of case studies and examples in the historical overview.   The third chapter ‘Making loss tangible: the psychology of architecture for death’ deals with psychological aspects of mourning, particularly difficult mourning related to the experience of trauma, and the facilitation of its ritual. To understand memorial architecture as a response to this, various proposals and designs for funeral architecture by different architects in different historical periods are observed. In this framework, attention is also given to cemeteries as concepts of commemorative landscapes containing features relevant for memorial architecture, such as transitional spaces.   ‘Building memory now’ is the fourth chapter, dedicated to a number of significant issues involved in the design of a memorial object, namely: the context of a globalizing world; the authenticity of the chosen location; the tacit knowledge of architects related to the preconceived notion of permanence in 11 . .

(16) Introduction . architecture, and finally, the question of incorporating deductive aspects in a design. Through addressing examples in both architecture and art, the chapter sketches the context in which contemporary designers work. Here I tackle the relation of architecture, as fixed entity, and memorialization, as highly intricate process, in the context of the conception of spectacle in Western cultures. Criticism of the ‘society of the spectacle’ 40 and spectacle in the modern era in general 41 are valuable in their own right, but in the first part of this chapter I seek to address mechanisms of representation instead of focusing on the effects.   Chapter five is a brief overview of significant architectural developments with regard to memorial buildings, as shaped by different political climates. The overview is concerned with architectural projects and concepts in Western Europe, with a few examples from the United States and fewer from South and East Europe, as well as countries from other continents. 42 In order to achieve a better understanding of contemporary developments, the overview begins with examples of monuments and memorials from the 19 th century onwards. There are four divisions within this chapter, following the development of commemorative architecture before and after the two world wars, the inter‐bellum period, as well as the upsurge in commemorative efforts after 1980. Of course, the material remains of commemorative efforts are as old as human civilization, and it would be an enormous effort to categorize them all, which is not the purpose of this study. Nevertheless there are several turning points in the commemorative architecture of the 19 th and 20 th century, as depicted in the historical overview, which had a profound influence on many later developments in the field of memorial architecture.   Finally, ‘Five contemporary memorials as case studies’ discusses five chosen memorials, mentioned before, in terms of their context, architecture and effect. Analyses of architectural spaces are structured around two questions: the design process and the materialization. 43   .                                                              40. Guy Debord, Society of Spectacle, Red and Black: Detroit, 1977 See for example: David Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, An inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell: Oxford, 1989 42 Reason for this selection was my aim to show the development of the commemorative architecture in the West where transcultural exchange of information was the forming ground for the development of typologies whereas other parts of Europe (and the examples including the former Soviet Union), were more resistant to influences and also in large part determined by the state policies. There are several examples which I found valuable for this discussion and they are listed in the leporello with a few examples from Israel, Mexico and Chile. 43 Due to the rather wide area of issues that needed to be addressed and, as a consequence, the abundance of information in the text, more detailed discussions of particular topics are added in the footnotes. Also, biographical data of the individuals mentioned are added where they contribute to the argument.   41. 12 . .